About Melissa Leach

Former STEPS Centre Director, current IDS Director

Melissa is a social anthropologist specialising in environmental and science-society issues. Research interests include social and institutional dimensions of environmental and technological change, and issues of knowledge, power and citizen engagement.

All posts by Melissa

Change mural

Post-pandemic transformations: new directions for development studies?

by Melissa Leach, Hayley MacGregor and Ian Scoones Does the pandemic reveal new directions for development studies? This was the focus of discussion at a recent IDS seminar. A new…

Achieving sustainable development means no goal leaving gender behind

This article is part of a series on the Sustainable Development Goals. Feminists and their allies fought strongly for a stand-alone Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on gender equality and empowerment…

Made in China? Mutual learning in a global development era

This week marks the 60th anniversary of the Bandung conference when Asian and African countries gathered in Indonesia to discuss independence, peace and prosperity. The conference resulted in 10 principles…

Why gender equality and sustainable development are inextricably linked

by Melissa Leach, Director, Institute of Development Studies As the world moves towards Sustainable Development Goals for the post-2015 era, there is emerging debate about how target-setting and implementation might…

Global health meets genomics: inequality and politics

Scientific advances in the understanding of genetics and genomics have the potential to generate major improvements for human health in the near future. However, from a global health perspective, the…

Resilience 2014: Limits revisited? Planetary boundaries, justice and power

By Melissa Leach, IDS Director In 1972 Meadows et al’s Limits to Growth made scientific and policy waves, as its ‘World3’ model predicted the end of growth and prosperity as…

Ebola in Guinea – people, patterns and puzzles

By Melissa Leach, Principal Investigator of Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium The francophone West African country of Guinea doesn’t often make international headlines, but has this week for…

Living on the edge: Rethinking aid amidst complexity

By Melissa Leach, STEPS Centre director These days, a remarkably short and convenient flight takes one from Sussex UK –  where among other STEPS Centre activities this week I’ve been…